


Divide and Conquer

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, MSR, post-ep: En Ami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Got a list of random words as a prompt: Striped, throat, muddled, heady, bath.  This is the result!





	Divide and Conquer

Scully’s thoughts are muddled as she turns every which way in the empty office that had only days ago been swarming with people.  She knows now that everything about the weekend was staged for her benefit, but how? Was there no end to what that cigarette smoking bastard would do?  

 

“Mulder, I…”

 

“Don’t.”  

 

She watches him walk away from her, watches him disappear down the hall and leave her behind.  She has to wonder if this elaborate ruse was even about a disc or if it was something much more insidious.  

 

When she pushes open the exit door to the abandoned parking lot, she doesn’t expect to find Mulder waiting for her, but he is.  The car is already running and he’s slumped against the door plucking at his lower lip. He doesn’t look at her when she slips quietly into the passenger seat, but waits until she latches her seatbelt to drive.

 

Never has silence felt so loud.  It takes twenty minutes for him to take her home, but it seems interminable.  She can only count the streetlamps that send striped bands of light sliding up the windshield in slow succession and try not to cry.  There are a hundred and ninety four streetlamps between the abandoned office and home. Who knew?

 

Mulder does not shut the engine off when he double parks in front of Scully’s building.  He’s not coming up with her, that much is clear. She still hesitates as though they’re playing that game that ended months ago where she’d bashfully ask if he wanted to come up for awhile and he’d pretend he was surprised by the invitation.  Her fingers absently graze the side of her neck where he’d kissed her goodbye on his way to the office only a few days ago.

 

Finally, she fumbles for the door handle and steps out of the car, one foot at a time, knees weak.  She doesn’t remember getting from the car into her apartment, only that one moment she was there and the next she was running a bath, sitting in the darkness of her bathroom next to a single flickering candle.

 

Suddenly, she shivers, and pulls at her clothes.  She wants them off and wants them out of her sight.  They smell of smoke. It’s in her skin and in her hair.  Her stomach rolls. Naked and shivering, she crawls into the embrace of hot water and slides down, down, down until she’s fully enveloped.

 

When she comes up for air, the smoke is gone and there’s only the scent of geranium oil.  Eventually, she stops shivering. Eyes closed, she lets her arms relax and float at her sides.  This is what she needs - to clear her mind and to think of how to correct the damage that’s been done.

 

She’s so still that there’s nary a ripple in the bathwater, nor a drip from the faucet.  In the quiet, her ears detect the soft scrape of shoes against carpet and she braces her hands on the lip of the bathtub and opens her eyes.  She smells him first, that heady brand of cologne announcing his presence before he softly calls her name. Relieved, she relaxes into the sloped back of the tub with a sigh.  

 

“In here,” she answers, just above a whisper.

 

He fills the doorway, a dark figure in shadows, but she can see his shining cheeks in the glow of the candlelight.  He steps inside and after a deep breath, deflates little by little to the floor, first with his knees to the bathmat, then to all fours, and finally with his cheek leaning against the side of the tub.  He puts his hand up next to hers, close, but not touching.

 

“You have no idea how scared I was,” he says.

 

“But, I do,” she whispers.

 

Their eyes meet.  He lowers his gaze for only a second and then looks back up at her before he nods.  His lips push together and for a moment she’s afraid he’s going to ask her to forgive him.  She silently implores him not to. He holds a breath instead and sweeps his thumb a little closer to her hand.

 

“I won’t let him break us,” he says.

 

“I won’t either.”

 

She waits a few moments and then she reaches her pinkie finger up and over his thumb.  He curls it into hers, holding on.

 

The End


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